DS: Otherverse
by Thor2000
Summary: In a parallel quantum reality, Carolyn Stoddard and David Collins have different lives and Barnabus Collins' past has one fact different than his mainstream counterpart.


PART ONE

The night sky was a peaceful dark shade of blue as the moon lit up the countryside outside Collinsport. Paul Stoddard (Don Briscoe) only really needed the lights for the shadows along the way as he and his beautiful bride. Liz (Alexandra Moltke) stared out the window as farms dashed by on her right hand side outside the car. In between, far images of the water in Frenchmen's Bay poked through the trees. The long drive from Augusta had been long and arduous and she was hoping the news from the medical specialist she had been consulting would have been better. She had not much to be joyful about as she commiserated on her life as just a wife.

"Liz," Paul stroked her shoulder as he finally saw the turn off for Collins Road and the estate. "I'm sorry. I know how much you wanted a baby, but.......... we could always adopt."

"I want..........." Liz stared out not even willingly to consider it. "I want a baby of our own."

"But it's not possible." Paul ran his fingers through his hair as he already saw Collinwood on the hill in the distance. "Doctor Guthrie said you couldn't have a baby. If there was a way for you to carry one to term, you might.........."

"For the money we paid him," Liz shot back. "He'd have found a way!!" She turned to brood out the window as she thought a bit. "Paul, there's something I have to tell you. Before we married, I had a.........." She stopped talking as she noticed something in the sky. It looked like an especially bright star, but it was moving. It looked like it might be a plane coming down, but she didn't see any wings or a fuselage. With the war in Europe barely out of her mind, she wondered if the reports were wrong and Hitler was alive to terrorize the United States. Paul slowed a bit as the light continued falling. It was coming closer and closer as the light from it blinded them both and he pressed both feet into the brakes of the car.

The automobile screeched to a stop as the loud shrill of the object filled their ears and passed above their heads. Paul pushed Liz down to the seat as they heard the explosion from several yards away. Liz was crying hysterically as her world came to an end. First she was told she couldn't have a baby; now, someone was bombing Collinsport. Paul held her tightly as he waited a few minutes then looked up out the car window. He was a bit tense from the experience, but now curiosity was overwhelming him.

"Liz," He kissed her. "I don't know what it was, but I don't think it was a bomb. Whatever it was, it crashed into Widow's Hill." He started the car again.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to drive closer and see if we can get a close look at it." He turned through the gates of Collinwood, but then drove the car down the old carriage road for the Old House. High weeds vanished under the car as the headlights shined around trees.

"No, Paul, don't..........." Liz was scared to death as she realized what he was doing. "Just go to the main house. We can call the police from there."

"I just want to get a look at it." Paul stopped the car and took the flashlight from under the seat. "I'll be right back."

"Don't leave me." She scooted out her car door and joined him on the path. Leaving the car, they slowly walked through the trees as they smelled the scent of burnt embers and dust from the blast. They could see the path the object had made through the burning tips of the trees and then the long dark groove into the ground at the cliff. There was a certain amount of heat coming from the long mark in the dirt as they peered over the edge.

"Stay here," Paul told Liz. "I think it's just a falling star or a meteorite."

"But what if it isn't." Liz watched him crouch and drop to a low level with the light under his arm. He dropped to another ledge and wandered a bit down. The impact had broke a big chunk off the cliff and gave him a few places to walk as he shone the light around huge rocks uncovered from in the cliff and over trees knocked over the edge. Liz shivered in the cove as she could no longer see her husband.

"There's nothing." He started back as he came back around the precipice. "It's just one large crater. Probably shattered on impact."

"I guess," Liz started back as he huddled close to her. She barely had taken a step when she stopped and looked back. Maybe her plight was getting to her. She thought she heard a baby crying.

"Paul," She stopped. "I hear a baby."

"Oh, Liz..." He scoffed at her. "It's probably a sea gull."

"I know what a sea gull sounds like!!" She was adamant. "I hear a baby!!!"

He just groaned a little bit.

"Please look again............. for my peace of mind!"

"Okay, okay.........." He turned to the precipice again as the distance roar of crashing tides hit the bottom shore. Retracing his steps, he passed the light over the same darkness as before as his ears strained to the sounds. Being in the war had robbed him of part of his hearing, but now he was certain he heard nothing. The debris under his foot slid a little as he rode it lower than before. Now, he did hear something. It did sound like a crying baby. Maybe his imagination was running away or Liz had placed the idea in his head, but now he dropped closer into the crater. The crying was getting louder as he got closer. He held on to a supported tree trunk to brace him as he scooted around and looked down. Partially buried in the earth was something like a satellite. It was gold in color and had an open top like a bottle or pot. Water pouring down through the tip of the crater was quickly flooding it as he dropped his light and pushed his hands through the hole. He felt something moving as he grabbed the thing covered in fabrics and pulled it out. It was a baby!!!

"Oh my god," He juggled the infant in one hand and covered it up in his jacket. Picking up his light, he sauntered and staggered back the way he had come. Supporting the child, he wondered what sort of mad experiment would involve shooting an infant into a rocket. As he emerged back to the cliff, Liz saw the bundle and reached to it.

"Oh my god," She held the child close to her bosom as the blanket moved a bit. "It's a girl! And what a beautiful little girl!! What was she doing down there?!"

"I'd say someone was playing a very cruel experiment." Paul escorted her back to the car. "Whoever it is, is not getting the girl back. You want a baby; you can have it. Let's call Constable Porter."

They moved back through the trees still smoldering a bit from being burnt by the wreckage from the skies. As they did, a figure watched them closely from the shadows smoking a cigarette. It postured a bit as he moved into the moonlight as if it was his personal spotlight. Distant from this reality, he had a certain duty he felt to explain these circumstances to others not native to this reality that needed to know what was occurring.

"Sounds like a story you've heard before, doesn't it?" He said. "An infant found in the aftermath of strange beginnings by a childless couple. This time it takes a bizarre twist as others more close to your heart replace the characters. The date is July 16, 1946; the setting is the estate of Collinwood near the sleepy seaport town of Collinsport, Maine. Now here's the rub, it is up to you to decide if this is the real past or another pre-sorted off-shoot of that many laned highway you call time. Submitted for your approval, I give you the past, and it is up to you decide if its the truth or not. It's up to you to discover whether or not Paul and Liz Stoddard have found happiness, or merely just another route that will take them both into the Twilight Zone....................."

PART TWO

Since his marriage to Laura, Roger and his wife had been living in Manhattan and had a son. Taking care of the Collins Family business affiliates in town, he was just one part of the large hub known as Manhattan's high elite, which included the likes of Howard Stark, Radley Crown and Thomas Wayne. By his side, the grand dame in his life was Laura Murdoch-Collins, a most beautiful shorthaired blonde who was also the mother of his son. They left the opera as they started their walk for their dinner reservation.

"Dear," Roger hesitated as he waited for the traffic to slow and allow the pedestrians to cross. "I was wondering. Let's spend this summer in Collinsport. David's almost eight and he's never met his cousin, Carolyn. She's just three years older than him."

"That's a great idea." Laura noticed the light change as they crossed the street. "But let's not tell them. Every time I tell Liz or Paul I want to come up, they come up with some excuse and force me to change plans. Honestly, the way they keep that poor girl cooped up with them..."

"Yes," Roger jovially looked down to David. "You'd like to meet your cousin, wouldn't you?"

"Girls, yuck!!" David sounded like a stereotypical young man as Roger and Laura chuckled between them. As they continued on their way to the restraunt, they slowed down a bit as a figure emerged from the alley in front of them. They stopped and looked back as another figure that had been following them looked up from under his fedora.

"Do me a favor, mister," He grabbed Roger's tie. "Don't scream." He fired a gun in his sleeve at point blank into Roger's chest. Laura started screaming as the other figure grabbed her pearls. Another gunshot echoed through the alley as David covered his ears. He watched his father's wallet being stolen as he froze where he was. One of the killers lifted his gun at him.

"Tell me something, kid." His father's killer grinned a little cobra grin as his blue eyes shone under his cap. "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight........." He held the gun on him and pulled the trigger. It clicked to an empty chamber as somewhere in the busy street a police siren began calling.

"Let's go, Jack!!!!"

"See you later, kid." His accomplice dropped the stolen wallet in his jacket pocket and instead of running just started casually striding down the alley. David just stood where he was and looked to his father and mother. Lying on the cold dark concrete, they weren't moving as he looked into the face of his mother. She seemed to be asleep as he shook her. A police car suddenly stopped near him and shone its lights into his face. One of the officers began to pine for the mental scars of the orphaned young boy.

PART THREE

David had been nervously adopted by his Aunt Liz and Uncle Paul and raised with his cousin Carolyn as if they were brother and sister. He had excelled in school and athletics and when he became eighteen, three years after Paul passed away, he left Collinwood to find his destiny. His desire was more into another course of life. He was let into most of the secrets of Collinwood carefully, especially the secret concerning Carolyn on why she was hidden from the world and not allowed to go to school until she was a teenager. The secret impressed David, but he didn't care much about it. It was obvious his fate was on another path. Liz never bothered to talk about it too much of anyone else except Matthew Morgan, the family retainer and caretaker. But every time Liz read the newspaper and heard about some strange blonde angel with incredible strength and powers who saved people across the world, she just sort of rolled her eyes and tried to keep from smiling. Sometimes the mysterious angel got more headlines than the one about the dark bat terrorizing the gangs and criminals in New York, but at least she thought she knew whom the strange woman was.

"Hello, mother..." Carolyn was almost always preceded by a sudden gust of wind as she entered Collinwood. The cold night air partially chilled Liz as the vivacious blonde grinned to her loving mother as she carried packages and put them down on the coffee table of the drawing room. "I was shopping in Paris and found you the most darling little sweater........."

"That's fine, dear." Liz stood up with the paper. "But you ought to be more careful. Matthew might have been in the room with me."

"I'm careful." Carolyn grinned as she gave the sweater to her mother. "I checked the room with my x-ray vision first."

"Careful?" Liz flashed a headline about a near fatal train wreck near Seattle, Washington.

"Well, I couldn't let it happen."

"Did you know how close you came to be photographed?" Liz looked upon her. "One photo and it'd all be over........."

"I'm too fast." Carolyn grinned. "They'll never get me." She changed the subject. "I saw David's car in the driveway. Is the family playboy finally visiting?"

"Yes," Liz wandered to the kitchen for her tea as her daughter followed. "And you know, he doesn't seem to be much a playboy anymore. He's become a bit darker.......... all he wants to talk about now these days are his parent's deaths. I'm so worried about him."

"He never did let go of them." Carolyn sensed something as her heightened senses sent a shiver through her body. She looked around the room. "I think we have a visitor at the door." Carolyn turned to the front of Collinwood. Her perfect blew eyes lit up a bit as she scanned through the estate wall by wall until she saw the person standing at the front door. "It's a man. My god, he looks like the portrait!!"

"The portrait?" Liz put the teapot down and headed to the foyer. She heard the knocking on the front heavy oak doors of the estate as she wanted to open them as the grand dame she was. Matthew was usually present to open them, but he was currently off on one of his secret errands.

"Yes," She pulled the doors open as Carolyn stood behind here. The dark shadowy figure was holding a wolf-handled cane.

"I'm looking for Mrs. Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard."

"I'm her." Liz looked at him. He did look the man in portrait over the fireplace.

"How can I help you?"

"Allow me to introduce myself." The man grinned nervously. "I'm Barnabas Collins, a cousin from England............."

PART FOUR

To those who knew him, David Collins seemed to be just another bored Manhattan socialite with relatives in Maine, but the real David Collins was a dark somber individual obsessed in a life mission kept secret from everyone but his cousin and she had the habit of discovering secrets. Collinsport may not have had the tall buildings and element he was used to, but he could not rest unless his secret forced him into a dark patrol over the small town structures.

Since a few nights before Cousin Barnabas arrived, three women had been killed. All three had been blonde, attractive and left drained of blood through two tiny puncture wounds in the neck. They were not his usual muggers and drug pushers, but David in his rubber cowl, cape and body armor was sure his big city detective skills could catch this killer. He dropped from the roof of Trask's Mortuary and ran across the second floor roof of Todd's Antiques toward the street. A hidden ride on the top of the bus transport in town took him to the restraunts and market ways that formed the alleys near the docks. He moved with stealth and took to shadows as he watched out for these people. Wondering who he might have been had his parents never been killed, the twenty-two year old caped crusader scowled a bit in his mask as he watched for things that aroused his suspicion. His eyes spanned for a lonely stranger looking for girls, signs of a scuffle or just the odd look of a person with a grudge. It was hard to tell even with his experience on who could be a serial killer. He gazed from the roof of Braithwaite Jewelers as a few couples laughed and enjoyed the evening. For a brief second, David longed for a similar relationship, but then he heard a high-pitched scream through his rubber cowl and turned on immediate instinct.

He vaulted across an alley as fast as his legs could run and then dropped twenty feet into darkness surrounded by even darker shadows. His unearthly presence invaded the dark sanctum behind Coleman's Market as his eyes strained to the darkness. He kept scanning and slowly searching as he walked deeper into the gullet of the black night air. Fog rolled in from the bay as the atmosphere seemed to invite him. David heard a sound and turned around. Another figure in dark rushed for him. It was swinging something like a staff, but the top shone in the moonlight like a polished piece of silver. He ducked and moved from the strikes made for him as he tried to see the attacker's face. He caught the weapon briefly and struck hard, but his opponent seemed to be a bit stronger than even he. David had exercised himself to lift two hundred pounds, but this person or entity was almost superhuman. He felt himself lifted off his feet with nary a grunt and tossed like a small boy. David's back bounced off a wall as he dropped, rolled and pranced into a fight stance. His opponent had vanished. There were no footsteps vanishing to nowhere. Just the faint flapping of leathery wings over his head as a kindred sprit left his fight scene.

In his attacker's place, David noticed an arm sticking out from a partially closed dumpster. He leapt up and crouched on the edge as he reached in and felt for a pulse. It was gone. Another woman with long blonde hair had just left this mortal coil. She had a strange startled look in her face as two trickles of blood flowed from wounds in her neck.

"That's it!!!" A police officer appeared in the alley ahead of a crowd of people. "The vampire!!!" David was knocked over by the gunshot bouncing off his chest plate. He somersaulted across the ground and ran down the other way as he realized he was now unwillingly the main suspect. Uninterested at the moment to try and explain anything, he noticed more persons running for him and leapt for a fire escape. More quickly scaling the exterior of the building near him, he reached for a signal off his belt and his grappling hook and sent a high-pitched scream into the night. Things did not look good for him as all the dogs in the area began barking at the ultra-sonic device. He leapt another alley and pined for the tall buildings and shadows of Manhattan he was used to.

"He's up there!!!" Voices began screaming and calling as David fired his cable for the city hall clock. In the pale moonlit night, it must have looked like he was flying as his cape spread out. He had to get higher as flashlights and patrol car searchlights strained the roofs and highest buildings in town. David clutched the city hall steeple as a police car stopped out front below him. Sheriff Davenport grabbed his high-powered flashlight and shone it to the sky. The shadow he was chasing had vanished!

"Turn that sonic scream off, it's giving me a headache." Carolyn's voice replied as she flew to Collinwood holding David by his utility belt. Her long blonde hair flapped in the breeze with her red cape as her eyes strained in the dark.

"Sorry." David scowled as his cousin saved his butt once again.

"Did you see him?" Carolyn saw Collinwood and descended down on to one of the balconies of the West Wing. She placed David down first as she walked the estate once more. "Do you know who he is?"

"It's not a serial killer." David mumbled.

"Psychopath?"

"Vampire." David mugged pulling his cowl off his head.

PART FIVE

Matthew Morgan tended to the needs of the Old House as he heard his master approaching. Trapped in the thrall of the vampire, he was regretting having broken into the tombs of the Collins family looking for jewels to sell for money. He tried not to look up as the front doors opened, but as it became apparent he could not, he turned his head stiffly to the presence of Barnabas Collins.

"Did you find it?" Barnabas loomed over him as an unearthly pallor from the fireplace lit up his unearthly features.

"Yes," Matthew tried to repeat the duties of Ben Stokes. "It was in your mother's possessions as you said."

"Yes, finally." Barnabas's heart broke at the picture of the woman in the pages of the journal. "My one true love. You should never have left me." He spoke to the enchantress in the picture.

"Who was she?" Matthew asked.

"She was..." The reluctant vampire looked to the space over the fireplace where her portrait once hung for what seemed to be millennia before to him. "...Going to be my wife."

"She was very beautiful." Matthew looked at the picture.

"Beautiful?" Barnabas appeared forlorn as he treaded through the Old House's barely restored parlor for the staircase. "Mere words could not describe her. She was beyond description. No one before her ever matched her beauty. She was one of a kind. The only woman who would have my heart." He walked the steps to her room at the top of the stairs. It was supposed to be their wedding chamber, but it was never used. The room sat intact as it was two hundred years ago when it was nailed up. Barnabas's eyes panned distraughtly from the white canopy bed then to the freshly cleaned vanity table. Everything was restored from the lace in the blankets to the furnishings on the walls. Above the fireplace rested a portrait of a beautiful blonde woman in white.

"Her name was Angelique DuPres." Barnabas stared into the portrait as he waited for her to return. "She was a princess from Martinique. My father would have me marry her sister, but it was Angelique who took my heart. No one ever touched my soul as she did.........." He reached up as if he thought he could take her hand from out of the portrait. The moment he touched it, he heard a woman's sadistic laughter from outside the room. The cackling sound of a strange woman's voice forced Matthew to turn as dropped in fright from the spectacle of the female specter floating a few feet off the upstairs landing. The dark haired phantom with flowing white robes floated in the air and continued laughing as Barnabas stared in defiance at her.

"Did you remember what I told you, Barnabas...?" The ghost laughed as she pointed her finger at him. "Have you had eternity to change your mind?!! Will you love me yet?!!" Her voice dissipated into an unearthly shrieking that tore into the soul of Matthew Morgan. He cowered behind Barnabas standing defiantly against this horrible apparition.

"Damn you, Josette!!!!" Barnabas roared as he threw a silver candlestick at her vanishing body. "Even from the grave you mock me!!!!"

"Barnabas," Matthew still cringed in terror from behind the rail at the top of the stairs. "What was that?"

"That, Matthew..." Barnabas glared at the empty air the ghost once occupied. "...Was Josette, the witch who made me what I am."

PART SIX

Despite having been sheltered her entire life because of her wonderful powers, Carolyn had been allowed to attend public school at Collinsport High School in order to make friends. Keeping her incredible powers secret and refraining from using them for personal gain was hard, but she had made wonderful friendships with so many people. Joe Haskell and the twins Chris and Tom Jennings were a few of the boys she had dated and Maggie Evans, Roxanne Drew and Amanda Harris were a few of the girlfriends she had kept up with. Roxanne worked a lot at the shipyards as a secretary around Joe, but Amanda worked at the diner in the Collinsport Inn. The daughter of Samuel Harris, a local artist among many, the beautiful cheerful ingénue greeted everyone with a smile and a cup of coffee. Maggie was a bit more mysterious. Raised by a rarely seen grandmother, she just sort of drifted through school as if she could take it or leave it. A bit worldly, the enchanting auburn beauty often haunted Collinwood along with Carolyn as if she wanted to live there as well.

"Oh my," The two young ladies marveled as Barnabas had the Old House restored. The pale white paint on the building was now a brilliant white as men cleared brush and cut away weeds. Maggie followed behind Carolyn as they walked past workmen on the front veranda still stripping old paint off the front pillars for them to be painted. Other men cleaned and steamed the rugs and replaced wallpaper as the young ladies passed by them.

"Cousin Barnabas?" Carolyn wondered where her new cousin was as they realized the second floor was devoid of workmen. "Maggie?"

"What's this?" Maggie pushed open the door to Angelique's room. No one knew much about the forgotten Collins ancestor, but many believed her ghost haunted the estate. Carolyn was in awe as the room was obviously preserved to the lost woman in the portrait. Maggie brushed her hand over the quilt on the bed and then looked over the bottles on the vanity.

"It's perfect." Maggie replied. "Such detail, I wonder how he knew."

"Uncle Barnabas is quite a scholar on the family." Carolyn awed at a beautiful Eighteenth Century dress she pulled from a trunk. She felt a bit like a girl in her mother's closet wanting to wear it. Perfume bottles chimed a bit with Maggie smelling each wonderful scent. As the sun lowered outside, they heard loud footsteps charging up the staircase.

"What are you doing in here?" Matthew Morgan found them and hollered at them in a panic. "You must get out of here!"

"Matthew, don't worry," Carolyn looked at him. "We won't break anything."

"You don't understand." Matthew shook his head as he tried to grab Maggie. "Barnabas don't want anyone up here. You have to go!! Now!!"

"Matthew, you're embarrassing me." Carolyn gasped as she looked at him and then stood a bit embarrassed before Maggie. "Barnabas said we could come down at any time..."

"But not when he wasn't here.........." He grabbed Carolyn's arm. "You go now..." She flinched him off with little effort as he stumbled and landed on his back on the floor. Maggie gasped at the fit of strength, but Carolyn looked back in shock. How could she be so careless? It was just a reaction, but if anyone knew just how strong she really was.........

"Is there a problem up here?" Barnabas appeared as the house gradually became darker. "Matthew?"

"Uh, it was, uh," The overweight caretaker lifted himself up as he held his hand to his neck. "I fell... I was just showing them out."

"Them?" Barnabas noticed Carolyn then looked over to Maggie just out of his vision. "Josette!!!" His temper rose at the sight of her likeness to his estranged wife.

"Cousin Barnabas," Carolyn stepped in as Maggie looked back in shock. "This is Maggie, my best friend. I thought I'd bring her by to show her the house.  You see, we used to explore it back when we were in high school."

"I see..."

"You called me Josette." Maggie was a bit perplexed. "Who was she?"

"She was Angelique's sister." Barnabas looked to the woman in the portrait as Matthew practically hid in the background listening. "You look just as I picture her."

"You know so much more about her than we do." Carolyn looked at the beautiful woman in the portrait. "What ever happened to her? Where did she come from?"

"She was a princess of Martinique." Barnabas started dramatically with a wry grin. "Her father was a wealthy man who had betrothed Josette, his eldest daughter, to my ancestor, the first Barnabas Collins. Barnabas, however, fell in love with Angelique, and even would have married her, but it was not to be."

"What happened?" Maggie asked.

"The two lovers planned steal into the night to elope," Barnabas described the night as he recalled it but tried to make it sound like a story. His heart broke as if he were too attached to the romantics of it. "But Josette would not allow it. She intercepted my.........ancestor's letter to Angelique, and called her to Widow's Hill. It was there that Angelique became convinced that she had been spurned, jumped to her death."

Matthew sauntered in his place as Barnabas left out the details he had told him. Certain details about curses and Josette being a witch were obviously being filtered to keep the tale as romantic as possible and even to keep certain family skeletons from escaping.

"That's so horrible." Carolyn's heart broke. "How did your ancestor handle it?"

"He sailed off to England to forget the tragedy." Barnabas added the addendum his father had created to conceal the vampirism in the altered version committed as history.

"But he did marry another, or else you wouldn't be here." Maggie added as she stood near Carolyn.

"Yes," Barnabas didn't add anything to the realization.

"It's getting dark," Carolyn looked out the window. The sun was completely gone now. "We had better be going." She looked at Barnabas staring at her and Maggie. There was something about his eyes that unnerved her as if he was staring straight through her.

"Have a good day, Mr. Collins." Maggie beamed to him.

"And to you lovely ladies," Barnabas became charming again as he kissed Carolyn's hand. "Please, visit me at anytime."

"We will." Carolyn grinned back as she headed back downstairs. The workmen were all gone now as the downstairs became almost deserted. As she stepped on to the front veranda, she had a weird panic attack as if she had just gotten out with her life. She started to turn her head to eavesdrop with her enhanced hearing, but all she heard was Maggie.

"What a wonderful man." Maggie told her. "You don't meet that many men secure enough to be that romantic, or that sensitive."

"No, you don't." Carolyn realized.

PART SEVEN

Carolyn Stoddard wandered down to the Old House as she delivered a message to Barnabas from her mother inviting him to dinner. It was a brisk walk down to the house as she glided over the path through the woods and glanced over the nearly completed restored Old House. It was a brilliant white as the sun lowered and the night blanketed the area. Her heels rapped across the front veranda as she moved to the doors and realized they were open. She poked her head in as she looked around.

"Cousin Barnabas?" She stepped inside. "Hello." The house seemed empty, but then why would he leave the door open? She wondered if Matthew could have been somewhere working as she increased her hearing to include every vibration. The house seemed as quiet as a tomb. Now, why did she have to start thinking that!

"Cousin Barnabas?" She looked in the kitchen and down the hall to the study. She nervously shifted her eyes as her pupils lit up in the darkness and her special powers allowed her to peer through the floor above. She controlled how much she was seeing until her mind was on the upstairs rooms and the attic. The upstairs seemed empty as she saw Angelique's room from the parlor and then the bedrooms. They were all devoid of possessions except for Angelique's room. Surely, someone as her cousin collected things in his life. Keepsakes from the past, souvenirs to remember events, he had nothing like that. It was just a house as she started to pan to the basement.

"Carolyn?"

The young blonde jumped a bit as Barnabas glided up to her. She hadn't even detected his presence and his heartbeat sounded wrong as if it were just barely going through the function of beating for the sake of pumping. His blood sounded too thin to be blood.............

"Cousin Barnabas," Carolyn grinned a bit embarrassed. "You scared me."

"I'm so sorry," His face was so somber. "Whatever are you doing wandering alone like this?"

"I was looking for you." Carolyn couldn't understand why she was having a stress attack in front of him. Why was he provoking such fear in her? "My mother wanted me to invite you to dinner."

"How very nice." Barnabas stood looking at her as he stared suspiciously into her eyes. "But please inform Elizabeth that I cannot make it. You see, I'm eating in tonight."

"Eating in...." Carolyn felt her head becoming dazed as her new cousin continued gazing into her eyes. It was almost as if he saw something in her. Had he discovered her secret? She felt mesmerized and her will had even seemed to vanish. She felt his hand brushing her long hair off her shoulder, but she could barely stop him. He stepped close to her and slightly tilted her head as he sank his teeth into her neck.

PART EIGHT

Matthew Morgan worked diligently to restore the Old House to Barnabas's specifications and expectations. Angelique's room had been carefully cleaned and meticulously arranged, but then it had been boarded up after all these years. The master bedroom needed a bit more work and some restoration work after cleaning up after the gypsies that lived on the estate in the

Nineteenth Century. The windows were wide open and the dusty drapes flapping in the breeze going through the house to spare Morgan from the paint fumes. His undead master would be in his casket for hours by now.

"Matthew..." Barnabas stood above him grinning.

"Barnabas?!!!" Morgan dropped his paintbrush and looked to the sunlight streaming into the room. He rushed to seal it as Barnabas took his hand.

"No, Matthew..." The former scion of Collinwood took a deep breath before the open windows and looked out to the sun for the first time in over two hundred years. "It's a miracle!!!"

"I don't understand............"

"It's Carolyn's blood." Barnabas grinned warmly to be rid of the curse after all these years. "It's made me normal again."

"But..." Morgan acted nervously to see the man he knew as a vampire walking in the daylight. "How's that possible?"

"Isn't it obvious." The former vampire beamed warmly as his heart became heavy with emotions. "She's the reincarnation of my Angelique, and it was her blood and spirit that cured me. She will be my Angelique again!!"

"Master Barnabas..." Morgan thought he was becoming Ben Stokes in this time. "Carolyn? But she's..."

"I want you to deliver this letter for me." Barnabas handed a letter sealed in wax with the family crest. "I want her to be my guest for dinner, and this........." Barnabas placed a small round glass music box on the mantel of what was once his father's room. He lifted the brass lid as it began tinkling with music. "...Will be a gift for her."

In the study of the main house at that moment, David Collins was consumed with knowledge as he poured through books and old texts. Quiet and distant, he picked up the toasted tuna sandwich his Aunt Liz had made for him and took another bite as his mind remained engrossed in thought. He barely heard the sound of his aunt enter the room as he continued reading.

"The Science of the Living Dead???" Liz grimaced at his choice of reading material. "Really, David, I thought you out grew that stuff."

"It's actually pretty engrossing." David looked almost like Michael Keaton in that odd superhero movie from a few years before. He looked up through his glasses as the light passed through the room as Liz put down an extra tray with another sandwich.

"Carolyn didn't eat?"

"No," Liz admitted. "She's been tired and drained since she got back from the Old House last night. You know, she's never been sick like this. I don't understand what could be affecting her."

"Did you check for one of those nasty green glowing rocks from Widow's Hill?" David reflected on the odd origins of his blonde cousin.

"Yes," Liz stood staring out the window. "I'm sure Paul and I got rid of the last of them years ago. Only thing I can figure is that one or more may be scattered on the property from that rocket."

David made a noise as if he agreed. He turned to his stacks of books and started reading as he noticed a few lines that seemed to fit in on what they were talking about.

"The victims of the vampire if they are not completely drained of blood will experience symptoms of anemia and listlessness. It is during this time that they are potentially more vulnerable to the vampire's will and control. The vampire can control his victims both verbally and telepathically over long distances in order to keep drawing blood. Each time the vampire bites his victim; he leaves an enzyme in his victim's body that converts their blood into a liquid called ichor. After death, if a victim has enough ichor in their veins, they return to life as a vampire. In the meantime, they remain under control of the vampire and even develop an inexplicable sexual attraction to the vampire that bit them. This is why most vampires prefer to bite victims of the opposite sex."

"Aunt Liz," David looked up from the book. "Maybe you ought to check Carolyn for any marks on her. Maybe she got bitten by something."

"Whatever for?" Liz looked back at him. "There are no dangerous animals around here."

"I'd still check her to be sure." David answered. He watched with Liz looking at him a bit perplexed by the request. She turned out of the study as David turned back to his book. Continuing along the same passage in his book, he still felt as if he were not alone. His eyes turned to and fro looking for others around him. Finally, he froze as if his mind was still on his book and then turned his head around to the dark shadow in the corner.

"Maggie!!!" He stood up in shock. "Where did you come from?"

"You did not see me, David Collins........." She spoke with an odd accent. "I was never here. It is almost time for you to become a creature of the night once more. It is you who will be the vessel of my destruction. You will carry my curse back upon my beloved Barnabas Collins." She gestured slowly as she mesmerized him. David obviously had a strong will, but hers was much stronger as the shadows covering her seemed to become part of her and oozed over her as if they were a part of her clothing and hair. It was hard to tell where she came from and where the shadows ended as she pulled the young man closer and pressed her lips over his in the process became a vessel of her control.

"You will restore my curse upon Barnabas Collins!!" Maggie ordered as her Martinique accent became stronger. "I am Josette DuPres, life eternal!!!!!!!!"

PART NINE

Matthew Morgan continued setting the dining room to Barnabas's instructions. The silverware had to be right and the ambience was supposed to be perfect as Barnabas hoped to explore a friendship with Carolyn, the alleged reincarnation of his beloved Angelique.

"Did you deliver the invitation?" He asked Matthew.

"I did," Matthew lit more candles. "I gave it to Mrs. Stoddard to give to her."

"Excellent." Barnabas moved across the back of the dining room. Even as a cured vampire, he exuded an intimidating aura of darkness in Matthew's mind. The old caretaker watched as his new master paused by the windows and looked out as the wind had picked up. Loose shutters on the Old House began striking the outside walls and whistling gales flitted through the attic above as if they were ghosts trying to warn them from what they were doing. Barnabas ignored the sounds as he listened to the fire crackling in the fireplace and the mournful cries of the wind breathing through the chimney through the house. The former vampire watched as Matthew set up the dinner.

"Nothing may go wrong." Barnabas repeated himself as he heard a crash. The front doors in the foyer had burst open as if the ghosts of Collinwood were still trying to warn him. A few candles were snuffed out in the breeze as Matthew rushed to close the door. Barnabas took a long match from the mantel to restore the candles as Matthew left him alone to tend to business.

"Carolyn will be here any minute." Barnabas continued talking. "When she appears, I want you to make yourself scarce. I can handle everything else for the night. My own Ben Stokes could not have done it so well, Matthew. Matthew?" He realized he hadn't heard from him. He left the dining room and crossed the parlor to the foyer. Matthew was nowhere in sight and the front doors were still slightly ajar. He pondered the incident as he reached and pulled the doors shut. His loyal manservant seemed to have vanished, but where? The hairs on the back of his neck also stood up on the back of his neck. Barnabas realized he was truly human again as he realized that something else was with him. Something other than what he thought was watching him.

He heard a loud thump as something dropped from the top banister. It was that creature again. Tall, dark and sinister like some bat with the identity of a man, the creature that he had fought in the alley was back as he grabbed his cane. The dark shadow grabbed it with one hand and twisted it out of his arm. Without his unearthly powers, Barnabas realized he was no longer a match for it.

"What sort of creature are you?!!!" Barnabas yelled at it. It looked like it could be a man in a suit, or a phantom that had taken physical form. It charged at him and tried to grab him as Barnabas grabbed a tall candelabrum to strike at it. This unearthly shadow before him barely responded at the blow as it opened its mouth and hissed with a mouth of sharp teeth.

"No," Barnabas screamed in fright. "I won't return to what I once was!!" He scrambled for the dining room to escape it, but something else formed out of the blackness in the room. It was a woman's face turning into view. Garbed in black, she might have been just a head floating in the dark, but as she strolled forward, Barnabas thought it might be Carolyn's friend, Maggie, but then he realized the truth.

"Oh, my poor, Barnabas," Josette spoke with her natural voice instead of that of the young girl she pretended to be. "Did you think it would be so easy?"

"Josette!!" Barnabas was grabbed and lifted off his feet against the wall as her dark ally remained in her control. "Can't you leave me in peace?! Have you not tortured me enough?!!"

"No, my dear husband," Josette was still as young and as beautiful as ever. "I gave you eternity to relent to be with me, and eternity lasts a long time. Your punishment is not over........."

Barnabas cringed as her dark disciple forced his head to the side. He could feel the loathsome beast's breath as it started to once more curse him to an existence of darkness.

"David!!!" Carolyn had stormed through the house. "Stop it!!!" She grabbed her younger cousin by his cape and pulled him back. Barnabas dropped to the floor into a heap as he watched stunned at Carolyn's strength. She had tossed the creature that had been holding him across the room with barely any effort. Josette leered at her with hatred.

"Carolyn!!" She shrieked hatefully. "Go! This does not concern you!!!!"

"Maggie???!"

"My name is Josette DuPres!!!" The dark-robed witch advanced as she guided David in control. "I killed the real Maggie Evans years ago! David, kill your cousin!!!!"

Barnabas watched in fear. David was the dark knight behemoth in Josette's control? What of Carolyn's own supernatural might? None of it made sense as Carolyn lifted David off his feet and threw him as a rag doll. Still unaware of what he was doing, David grabbed a pillar in the parlor and swung on the momentum back toward Carolyn. The lovely blonde was briefly knocked down as she moved quickly and grabbed David by the neck himself.

"Josette!!" Barnabas turned to his estranged wife. "Stop this madness. Don't kill Carolyn!"

"It's a bit late for that." Josette realized that David was no match for Carolyn's unusual power. She, herself, might be however as she pulled out what looked like a Barbie doll with a piece of cloth tied around it. She pushed a long needle through its head as Carolyn began screaming. It felt like her head was about to split wide open.

"Magic, Carolyn," Josette screamed. "That is your weakness!"

"No!" Carolyn was lifted off the floor by her hair as David yanked her up and tossed her down the basement stairs. Josette pressed the doll to the wall as Carolyn found herself tossed and pinned the wall. David was still under her former friends control as she tried to focus her heat vision on him. Josette lifted her doll over her head as it controlled Carolyn once more. The blonde heiress was unable to control where she was being thrown as Josette slammed and tossed the doll around. When it was slammed to the wall, Carolyn grabbed her head as if it were about to split. As Josette lifted it high above her head, the poltergeist action lifted her off her feet beyond her control and slammed her into the ceiling in the basement as Josette laughed at the crash of Carolyn into the floor beams under their feet.

"Josette, stop this now!!!" Barnabas stood in terror as Carolyn was being thrown around just as the doll was thrown around. "I will do anything!"

"That and a lot more, my dear Barnabas," Josette leered at him. "I earned my power from the souls of your sister, mother and fair Angelique. Once I kill Carolyn and absorb her incredible might; you will have no choice but to bow to me!!!"

The confrontation in the basement continued as David was thrown up the stairs against his will. He slid through the foyer outside the parlor and crashed through the front doors. Even under a hex, Carolyn was too powerful. Her dress torn away to her costume underneath, she stormed up the stairs to attack Josette and then stopped as if she realized the folly of what she was trying. She then stepped back and raced out of the Old House as if trying to escape. Barnabas watched her through the windows in surprised shock as once outside she had taken off to the sky like some blonde angel of fury. He wanted to flee as well, but David in his unnerving costume was still in Josette's control.

"I'll have her soon enough," Josette snarled. "David, you may return my curse to Barnabas."

"Josette, please," Barnabas backed away as David stumbled to his feet and came for him once more. "I will take you as my wife, but I do not want to be what I was. Anything, but that!!!"

"My fair, Barnabas," The auburn-haired sorceress looked at him. "You have no decision in this."

"No!!!" Barnabas was lifted off his feet once more. He could now recognize David under the dark cowl and begged to him to free him. It seemed to have an affect as David blinked, shook his head as if he felt he was no longer controlled by anyone but himself and carefully placed Barnabas back down to his feet.

"What are you doing?!!" Josette screamed. David turned at her as he grabbed the doll and pulled the anathema off controlling Carolyn. There was a rush of wind outside as Carolyn returned in her red, yellow and blue costume. She stood beaming in the parlor.

"What's going on?!!" Josette screamed.

"Should have kept your mouth shut." Carolyn answered. "When you told Barnabas about who you had killed for your powers, my hearing picked it up. So I went back in time and rescued someone after the fall from Widow's Hill."

Another presence entered the room. Still clad in her Eighteenth Century dress, Angelique DuPres looked around the house as she recognized her sister and then her true love.

"Barnabas!" Tears came to her eyes.

"Angelique!" They both rushed to each other as David realized that by Carolyn altering the past, he was no longer a vampire nor had ever been. Josette's spells of longevity also seized to exist as she felt herself growing older and older. Her hair began turning white as she turned to her true age and beyond. Without Angelique's soul or life force taken in the past, she was becoming what she was supposed to be: just another dead witch.

"No!!!!!!!!!!!" She crumbled into dust being devoured by her own black energies.

PART TEN

Angelique Miranda DuPres-Collins hesitantly settled into the Twentieth Century as she married her beloved Barnabas two hundred years later than their scheduled wedding. She would have preferred to live in the past, but since her sister was still alive back then, it became the obvious decision to place as much space as well as time between them. Barnabas finally embraced his life as a former vampire and took Carolyn and David's secrets to heart as they accepted his for the better interests of all interested. It was an uneasy pact for David; he thought Barnabas should have at least atoned for the crimes he had committed, but then he had to realize that his relative could not be truly accounted for murders caused under the insanity of a curse. Angelique meanwhile had become pregnant and gave birth to twins. The boy was named after Matthew and the girl named after Carolyn and they both became two of the most loved children on the estate, but gradually the two beaming parents began to notice something strange about their two beautiful children. As younger Carolyn grew up, she began to see people no one else could see. She could see the Widows on the cliffs and the images of extra people wandering the grounds at Eagle Hill. Little Matthew had a sort of habit of getting things to go his way. Things he wanted moved for him and poltergeist activity seemed to follow him. If their daughter was seeing ghosts, then their son could make things move.

"Barnabas," Angelique embraced her husband as their five-year-old children slept upstairs. "I'm scared to death. We can't send them to public school. If anyone ever knew what our babies could do, we......... could lose them."

"I know." Barnabas held her tighter. "I'll talk to Carolyn; perhaps she would have some ideas."

There was a knocking at the front door of the Old House as they looked up. Angelique tried to swallow her fear as Barnabas wished for them to go away. His wife was a bit braver. She silently and calmly approached the door and opened it to three people. The older distinguished gentleman in the middle was in a wheelchair. The young man to the right was strikingly handsome, but obviously mysterious with his eyes hidden behind two thick red glasses. The young woman with them was extra-ordinarily beautiful with a cover-girl body, piercing green eyes and a streak of white hair through her long dark chestnut hair.

"Mrs. Collins," The older gentleman responded as Barnabas silently came forward.

"Yes?" Angelique nervously answered.

"Allow me to introduce myself," The man in the wheelchair continued. "I am Professor Charles Xavier and I run a school for gifted children. I am here to help you.................."

Rod Serling's voice-over: "It's been said that there's a future for every possible outcome. For every future we miss, it continues along another timeline regardless of our knowledge of it and joins millions of alternate timelines existing among each other in a single reality. Label this one in your imagination, for this one occurs.............. In the Twilight Zone................................."

END


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